Mozilla has revealed exactly what it takes to turn a phone running Firefox OS into an officially certified device — complete with a “powered by Firefox OS” stamp. If you hadn’t already guessed from the first roundof Firefox OSphones that have popped up on Geek.com, the hardware requirements are very, very minimal.

Mozilla shared the particulars this week at MWC 2013. In order to receive the Firefox OS seal of approval, phones need only ship with an 800MHz processor and 256MB of RAM. It’s a very low bar to be sure, but not surprising given the recent changes to the minimum hardware requirement in the Firefox app for Android.

Beyond the trifling specs, there’s just one other publicly announced requirement to obtain Firefox OS certification: the phone must include the Firefox Marketplace. With those bases covered, manufacturers are free to display Mozilla’s branding. Individual partners will also have to agree to certain other terms with Mozilla, but those may vary from deal to deal and we’ll likely never know what exactly they consist of.

The attraction for consumers in emerging markets is obvious: low end phones like the ZTE Open and the One Touch Fire will sport very low price tags. They’ll make it easy for anyone to afford a smartphone, though it remains to be seen whether or not these devices will be cheaper than the budget Android devices that are currently available around the globe.

But Firefox OS phones are also very attractive to carriers. Why? For starters, there’s no need to subsidize phones this cheap — they’re a cash-and-carry item. Then there’s the bonus income carriers can generate by offering up their own content stores — whether they sell movies, music, apps, or games. The possibility of cooking up delicious purchase revenue is the real reason big names like Deutsche Telekom and AT&T aren’t pledging their support for Firefox OS.

It’s certainly not because they want to assist Mozilla in moving the mobile web forward.